History BDWF

Trevor Day is the founder member of the group, first walking in Nijmegen in 1984 and continuing as an active member ever since. He was made our first Honorary Life Member for services to the club. The group has grown in size considerably since the early days, and has had several re-incarnations. It started out affiliated to BT and in 1988 a partnership with the PTT (Dutch Telecom) was formed. Since the mid-1990’s the Nijmegen Group has supported itself through sponsorship, initially from Telfort (then a company owned in The Netherlands by BT and NS – Dutch railways) and most recently BT Ignite. The fellowship now The BDWF was formed in 2004 keeping many of the members that originally started with it while the fellowship was part of BT. The group no longer has any form of sponsorship and is funded by members, while still being a non-profit organisation. All the support crew are volunteers and most have considerable experience in assisting with the smooth running of the event each year. Some are ex-walkers who for various reasons have had to retire, some are walkers’ partners and others come along because they just can’t keep away. They all work very hard to achieve their main objective of the week, which they pursue with about the same limited amount of sleep as the walkers (and sometimes less!), this is ‘to assist Nijmegen walkers to complete their target distance successfully by offering positive encouragement and practical assistance throughout.’ Everything we ask the members to pay simply covers the cost for the week, each year we look for new ways in order to keep costs down, sometimes this means taking an earlier train through the channel tunnel or searching for different suppliers. We strive to keep the costs low and the quality of service high. We try to explain to our members that the more people who attend the cheaper their costs will be as it shared evenly among the group.

Our aims are to:

To encourage personal fitness through participation in regular exercise.

To contribute towards International understanding and friendship by encouraging people of all nationalities, races and religions to participate freely and without hindrance.

To encourage members to help promote and participate in events, both in the United Kingdom and Overseas observing the standards required, enabling these aims to be realized.

To provide a system of awards for achievement and regular participation.

To fully support the British Sports Councils in the control of drug abuse as laid down by their governing councils.